


Stoned

by flatfelledyetstillundone



Series: Stoned And Associated Works [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Blood and Injury, Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Historical Inaccuracy, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Pre-Slash, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Un-Betaed: We Fall Like Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29337036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flatfelledyetstillundone/pseuds/flatfelledyetstillundone
Summary: The first rock struck Crawley in the torso, bruising her ribs and making her sway leftward slightly. The second hit her in the arm; it had a rough edge that caught the fabric of her robe, doing a small amount of damage to the black cloth. The third impacted solidly in her middle, knocking the wind right out of her. It had been thrown particularly hard.She lost count after that, as the stones rained in hard and fast, most of them fist-sized. “Stoning” was such a mild term, Crawley thought. It made it sound like it was done and dusted -- an execution over quickly. But it wasn’t.-----Or: Crawley is stoned by humans for being a demon. Aziraphale happens to be there to help Crawley while she heals.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Stoned And Associated Works [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205993
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	Stoned

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Some swearing; graphic descriptions of injuries, cleaning injuries, injuries rapid-healing; poor self-esteem; and oh yeah Stoning.
> 
> Mind the Tags, my dears! This is rated Mature because there is some pretty gnarly injury description in here. Injuries inflicted by regular, everyday humans, which can be extra hard to read about for some of us folx. The author admits that they were going through Stuff, wrote this, then edited it up to be postable. Author would much rather write fluffy things with happy endings. This is not one of those things. If you're not sure how gross "gnarly injury description" is, check the end notes, ok? Be well and safe, my dears!

_**Bethany:** You were martyred? _

_**Rufus:** That’s one way of putting it. Another way of putting it would be to say that I was bludgeoned to shit by big fucking rocks. _

**_\-- Dogma (1999)_ **

The first rock struck Crawley in the torso, bruising her ribs and making her sway leftward slightly. The second hit her in the arm; it had a rough edge that caught the fabric of her robe, doing a small amount of damage to the black cloth. The third impacted solidly in her middle, knocking the wind right out of her. It had been thrown particularly hard.

She lost count after that, as the stones rained in hard and fast, most of them fist-sized. “Stoning” was such a mild term, Crawley thought. It made it sound like it was done and dusted -- an execution over quickly. But it wasn’t. (None of the humans’ executions were over quickly in this day and age, Crawley knew. It was a particularly viscious era, this one, full of hard living and hard dying.) No, stoning was slow and painful. A small mob of people beat you to death with the biggest rocks they could reasonably throw.

Crawley refused to give them the satisfaction of breaking her. They hurt her, yes. Oh, yes, her corporation was definitely sending lots of pain signals and alarms to her brain right now. But that was easy enough to ignore. Cracked ribs, dislocated shoulders, broken collarbone -- none of those was a lake of boiling sulfur, the tearing away of the Creator’s Grace, the daily hell of (well) Hell. So the only noises that escaped her lips were ones forced out by impacts on her lungs, little bursts of air more than anything. She didn’t huddle in on herself, no -- she stood tall, even as they killed her for it. Through it all, she glared at them with her yellow snake eyes. 

Her demon eyes. The eyes that made them want to kill her.

_ Should’ve known better than to come into town,  _ she thought.

Her unwavering gaze frightened them enough -- that, and the low-grade evil that Crawley spread over them as a Curse (not a one of them would go on to have others show them Mercy in life, oh no) -- that they hurled their stones that much harder, that much faster, that much more accurately. Oddly, it made it quicker, more merciful.

_ Oof, that one has a future in American baseball. Too bad he’ll be dead and in Hell, then,  _ Crawley thought. Her scathing internal monologue continued until said human landed a geologic fastball on the side of her skull, and her world went dark.

***

The first thing Crawley was aware of as she clawed her way back towards consciousness was the soft susurration of women’s voices. Her body not yet responsive to any direction, Crawley could only listen and catalog sounds. Voices, heartbeat, breathing, quiet outdoor sounds -- she hadn’t discorporated, thank Go-Sa-Someone. As awful as this next bit was likely to be, it was still preferable to being back in Hell and having to convince her superiors that she was worth the paperwork involved in issuing another body.

She knew from experience the pain would come next.

Ironic, that, really. Input senses return first, but not output ones. Can’t actually move anything, but feel it? Yup. Feel it in spades. And not be able to control it at all. It was the sort of thing They’d love down in Hell, if Crawley told them about it. Naturally, Crawley had done no such thing.

Pain. So much of it, too. Enough that Crawley fought to maintain consciousness.  _ Right on schedule, _ thought Crawley. Her corporation instinctively drew in a raspy breath, demonic Healing the only thing keeping it from expiring in mere heartbeats.

“Did you hear that?” a woman’s voice said, a bit louder than before. Crawley couldn’t hear the words of the reply, just the sound of a voice in a pattern that meant speech.

The pain lapped at her awareness, hazing her thoughts. Crawley struggled to stay focused, struggled to move, struggled to anything. 

“Channah, over here! She’s still breathing, Praise God. I don’t know how.”

“What do we do?” the one called Channah asked.

“I don’t know. Surely, we can not just let her die. Not now. Not if she has lived this long.”

There was a pause. Crawley felt air moving around him -- people to match the voices -- and then what was probably supposed to be a gentle touch. Despite that, she cried out in agony. Her eyes would not open; she had no control over her head or face.

“Hush, sister, hush,” came the voice of Channah. “You are not alone. We will get you help. Be still, or you may hurt yourself more.”

The other woman drew in a deep breath. “I know where we can get help. We’ll have to carry her. I pray it’s not too far.” More air moving and the sound of pebbles skittering, then a whisper close to Crawley’s face, “Sister, I am sorry, this will hurt. We must carry you to a healer. Channah and I will be as gentle as we can. We must wrap you to carry between us; please do not move yourself. Let us move you. Channah, the blanket, here!”

Crawley didn’t know why these women chose to help her, nor did she care. Particularly not once they’d eased her with strong arms and callused hands onto what was presumably a blanket -- by the time they’d finished with that and lifted her between them, the swaying movements were punctuation in a novel of pain. While she was at it, neither could Crawley have said how far they carried her, or how many turnings there were. They were back into the town, Crawley knew that much. Once again, there were the echoes of footfalls against walls, packed roads, human habitations, versus the open air quality to things that had been where they started.

There were moans of pain from the small jostlings that happened now and again. Crawley couldn’t help them any more than his saviors could help the jostles, though there were surprisingly few of both.

Eventually, they stopped. Crawley was not set down, and she could feel the vibrations of one of the women using a foot or leg to knock on a door. Bright shooting lights combined with stabbing head pain for Crawley, muddling the sounds that followed, until the unmistakable sound of a door opening.

“Yes? What is it?” Oh. Crawley would know that voice anywhere, anytime. What were the chances that Aziraphale was in town, that these strangers would bring her here to the Angel? “Elisheva, is that you, dear girl? What brings you -- Oh. Oh, goodness. Come inside, quickly.”   


“Thank you, Aziraphale,” the woman who was apparently named Elisheva said, her voice filled with respect and deference. “We were preparing the dead, and, see! It is a miracle that she lives! Please, please help.”

Crawley knew that as they spoke, she was carried inside. Were she a heartbeat away from discorporation, she would know. The warmth and safety that filled even the meanest hovel occupied by the Angel surrounded her. Crawley dared to think she might make it through this, after all.

At Aziraphale’s instruction, Channah and Elisheva gently laid Crawley down on the ground, gathered the lamps around and lit them, and then left to get buckets of water from the well. “Please,” Aziraphale had said, “fetch as full of a bucket of water that each of you can manage, and then there will be no talk of payment, as that is all I shall accept from you, my dears.” They murmured acknowledgement and left.

The kind of quiet that often went with the Angel filled the room. In the barest whisper, possibly not even meant for Crawley’s ears, Aziraphale whispered, “Oh, Crawley, what have they done to you?” Somehow, that tiny, aching whisper broke Crawley more than any of the flung stones had. She tried to talk again, to maybe mutter something to reassure Aziraphale, but all that came out was noise.

“Oh! No, don’t try to speak yet, Crawley!.” There was a pause, and then Aziraphale continued. “That is, rather, er. Yes, you have a broken jaw and shouldn’t speak, not yet. It’s a wonder you weren’t discorporated! Oh my. Not to worry! I’ll help you clean up, get you sorted, then I’m sure you can manage to mend yourself. Yes. Right?”

The sound of water, a heart-achingly gentle touch on her face, then the sensation of Aziraphale carefully washing her face with a damp cloth. It hurt, but it was also soothing. Blood matted hair was carefully picked off Crawley’s face and smoothed back. The cloth returned, warmed a bit, and the Angel began clearing crusted blood away from Crawley’s caked closed eyes. His hands were soft, confident. Somehow, Crawley knew that he worked as a Healer often, here among the humans. His fussing had stopped as soon as his hands had begun working.

When Crawley finally opened her eyes, they seemed to have trouble focusing. This had happened to her before when she’d been struck hard in the head. With everything throbbing in pain, it was hard to narrow down any one source of it, but she could tell that her face and head had taken a few pretty nasty hits. She blinked up at the Angel in the lamplight. The warm yellow glow of the lamps made a halo of his white curls. Meanwhile, he leaned forward towards Crawley with a furrow in his brow and worry in his too-blue eyes.

“Ah, there you are. Are you, ah, ready for me to set your jaw?” Crawley blinked slowly. Aziraphale gently set his hand on her face. His words may not have been full of confidence, but his hands were. His touch was light but knowledgeable. A slight nod and shift of pressure was the only warning Crawley got before the sideways jerk on the lower part of her face and the flash of searing, blinding pain.

“Ah!!” came the cry she couldn’t hold in.

“Careful! Don’t move it yet!” Aziraphale warned. “It’s quite in pieces. Now, let’s have a look at --”

The two women knocked softly on the door before entering. Crawley couldn’t see them at first, but as they got closer to Aziraphale -- who stood to greet them -- she could. Their clothes were dusty and marked them as poor, hands worn from hard work, faces lined from more sorrow than joy. They each looked at Crawley at least once, even while setting down their full buckets. In fact, they each made a gesture to Crawley before they turned to go. 

“May God heal you and protect you, Sister,” said Channah.

“This man is the wisest, kindest, and best man I have ever met,” said Elisheva, “If anyone knows how to return you to health, it will be him. I hold in my heart that someday, you will be well again.” And then they both passed from Crawley’s view and out the door.

With the women gone and all the lamps lit, Aziraphale began to wash Crawley’s hair. Crawey knew she had a head wound -- remembered the gigantic THUNK and then going black -- but had no idea of where exactly it was or how bad it was. So when Aziraphale gently peeled back her veil and tutted, turned her head slightly away from him, then began washing caked blood, grime, and something that looked rather like oat porridge out of her hair, Crawley got a better idea of location and extent of damage. No wonder the ladies who prepared the bodies thought it was a miracle she was alive. It was a miracle; a demonic miracle.

Crawley tried to mutter a question without moving her jaw; she was pretty sure Aziraphale would be able to sort it out. 

“Mmm?” Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and briefly shifted focus to Crawley’s eyes, as if to confirm the content of her question. Crawley didn’t like what the lamplight showed in those blue orbs. She had a feeling that Aziraphale saw too deeply into her, too much, too wisely. If she didn’t trust him… She was a fool for trusting him. But they both knew she was a Fool and that was that. Worse, though, Crawley thought she saw sadness in the Angel’s eyes. Why would he be sad? Crawley supposed it must be unpleasant to have to wipe blood and brains off of your helpless demonic counterpart. Crawley made a note to find a particularly nice vintage to bring to the Angel. Some of that honey wine the Celts made? Mead, was it? Or something from along the Silk Road?

After quite a pause -- at least four returns of the rag to the washing bowl and back -- Aziraphale softly spoke. “I’ve almost cleared this. I know you can’t feel it. Well, not exactly, though I am sure you must have an outrageous headache…” The rag returned to the bowl. Aziraphale leaned forward -- not over Crawley, no he’d never make her feel cornered like that -- but enough that she could see his face clearly without straining her eyes. “Crawley. It was close. So very close. A human would have died hours ago.” His eyes searched her face for some reason. “I’m sure you must be quite worn out, keeping yourself, well. Alive, so to speak.” His blue eyes again looked deeper into her amber ones than was really good for either of them. She should protest, but she hadn’t the energy for it. 

Aziraphale’s look of concern redirected itself from Crawley’s face to her head wound. “I Think I’ve gotten the bits of bone out. Your corporation seems to be repairing itself as I move my fingers out of the way, anyway, so I figure that’s a good sign.” 

Crawley can feel her demonic energy as it shifts about her body, making repairs. It prioritizes the biggest injuries first -- a safety mechanism to prevent unauthorized discorporation. It saved Crawley paperwork and having to plead her case for another chance to come up and “cause some trouble” more than two dozen times. In this case, since her brain has no sensory nerves in it, she doesn’t feel the repairs so much as the pooling of energy. But she does feel that: a hot tingle. Like pins and needles plus Hellfire. It’s good that there’s no sensory nerves there, because it’s much more comfortable than when there is. Say, for example, once it gets to the outer part of that wound, and starts in on fixing the skull and scalp.

There’s lots of nerve endings in the scalp. Gobs of ‘em. But first comes the loud pop of thick bone going from concave to convex. The burn of the parts that had shattered re-growing. Only then does the scalp grow back at what would be an alarming pace to any human happening by -- they’re safely alone, here.    
  
Which is good, because as much as Crawley is trying not to scream from the pain of it, she’s still making noise. Usually, she clenches her jaw and clamps her lips shut, daring her body to defy her and let out more than tiny whimpers. This time, though, her lips are a bit numb and the jaw itself is a mangled mess. She glues her tongue to the roof of her mouth and rolls her eyes up to hide her shame from the Angel.

Her peripheral vision tells her that he’s turned his head away. Out of respect? Disgust? Embarrassment? To check a lamp or get clean water? Crawley has no way of knowing, and try though she might to focus on that instead of the fire ants that are biting at her freshly reformed skin, the imaginary ants are currently winning.

The burst of Healing ends as quickly as it began, leaving her panting, sweat turning her clammy. Aziraphale turned back to her and wiped her face off with clean water and cloth. “There, there, the worst is over! You’re doing so well!” His brightness is forced, yet the sentiment seems genuine. Crawley has enough strength in her to roll her head back toward the Angel and roll her eyes at him.

A shadow of the sadness returns to his face. In the lamplight, Crawley sees that the angel has a few more creases on his forehead than he once had. A tiny, shadowed line sits between his brows as he looks down at Crawley where she lies. The angel sets his hands on his knees where he kneels beside her. “Oh, Crawley,” Aziraphale breathes, “I am so sorry this happened to you. Whatever it was, you didn’t deserve it, I am sure. I am very glad that Elisheva thought to bring you here. You’re safe here for as long as you need to stay; I’ve warded the doors and walls. We shan’t be disturbed by anyone until I deactivate them. We’ll simply pass beneath their notice. So… So take your time, please. Don’t exhaust yourself.” Something like hope lit the Angel’s eyes and his face was so painfully earnest.

Just great. Not only was Crawley having to go through an excruciatingly painful Healing process in front of Aziraphale, but the Angel was determined to help her feel better via increasingly rambling and emotionally charged statements, as well as attempts to get Crawley to stay even longer. This was no good. This wasn’t even bad. This was terrible. Crawley had to get on her feet and get moving before things got the kind of messy that involved less blood and bone and more heart and soul.

Blessed gorgeous angel and his wonderful blessed self. What was he even doing in this forsaken town? Some kind of local wise man slash Healer? Just great. Crawley considered it that much more reason for her to leave town fastest.

Aziraphale seemed to have interpreted the pause as Crawley resting up. Because he started in again, with less faked brightness and more quiet sincerity. “I bet I can get you tidied up a bit more, here. Clean up the blood -- goodness there’s quite a lot of it, but head wounds do bleed, don’t they?” The warm, damp cloth worked along her jawline, neck, then skipped down to her arm. Softly, gently. Aziraphale continued his monologue: “Give you something to listen to to distract yourself, hmm? Your veil is ruined, I’m afraid to say. A shame, it looks like it had a nice border on it. But you might be able to salvage your robes with a little work. Did you know…”

Crawley needed to  Heal her jaw so she could say something and get the angel to Just. Stop. He had no notion of his effect on her, that much was clear.

Nothing for it, then. More pooling Hell-Healing and crunching stretching searing clenching oh stop oh stop oh stop bedonesoon -- snap. Crawley opened her newly healed jaw with a slight click and an exhaled hiss.

“Crawley! Oh! Don’t you think you should have waited longer between those?” Aziraphale wrenched the rag in concern, dribbling dirty water onto his own robes, which he didn’t seem to notice, oddly enough.

Her first attempt at talking didn’t go so well, since she still had cracked ribs and a deflated lung that she’d failed to take into account. But it wouldn’t be her first time compensating for that, so she got it second try. “Angel, sstop fusssing. ‘Ss not my firsst time with thisss.” Tongue was still forked, damnit.

“Not your…? Oh, Crawley!” Aziraphale simply wrenched harder on the hapless rag. Crawley’s heart could relate.

“Asziraphale, angel,” Crawley whispered, one lung heaving air out on demand, cracked ribs or no cracked ribs, “‘M a demon. Humanss around thesse partss don’t like demonsss.” When Aziraphale seemed put out by that, Crawley almost laughed. As if an angel didn’t know a demon was bad news. They were on opposite sides, for crying out loud. (Sometimes Crawley considered crying out loud at the injustice of it all; but it wasn’t injustice, really. It was justice: Crawley had asked questions, Crawley had gotten thrown out. Justice.) “Sshould’ve hidden my eyess better.” There, an attempt to get a laugh.

Which apparently fell flat. Typical. Aziraphale looked up with big blue pools of pathetic. Totally unfair! “There is nothing wrong with your eyes, Crawley. Certainly nothing that calls for a beating of this magnitude.”

Crawley snorted. “A ‘beating’? Of ‘thiss magnitude’? Angel, I was stoned. In the public square. Y’know? Bludgeoned to shit by big fucking rockss?”

Aziraphale looked aghast. His “Language, Crawley,” seemed to be an automatic response, as he was clearly busier looking over Crawley’s injuries in light of this new information. Crawley was almost amused, except for the bit where she was a demon, most notably the Serpent of Eden, and so when humans shouted “Ah! A demon! Throw rocks at it!” they were generally fairly spot on in the blame game, at least. Would be nice if they maybe chose to simply chase Crawley out of town, or throw something softer. Dirt clods, perhaps.

“Stoned…” the Angel’s hands once again began to do their gentle work with warm water and cloth, “Crawley, again, I am so sorry. Nobody should be stoned. It is a cruel and horrible punishment. I have even tried to convince some of the humans as much, though I am afraid my rather pacifistic notions failed to catch on with most.”

Stupid Angel. Stupid, gentle, perfect Angel. Crawley hissed at it, then covered it as a reaction to a particularly painful spot Aziraphale was cleaning.

“So sorry. It’s quite caked on, just here.” Aziraphale hummed a little soothing noise, though Crawley doubted he was even aware he was doing it. “Ah, ooh. That side looks rather a mess.”

“Yup. That lung collapsed. Think that’ss next.” She grit her teeth and braced for the pain. Ribs and lungs weren’t fun to Heal; she’d been stepped on by a horse once, in her serpent form, and the resulting broken ribs and punctured lung had felt horrible both before and during Healing.

“Right,” said Aziraphale, giving a curt little nod, as if he were somehow contributing something other than cleanliness and complication. As if on cue, the Angel took up her hand between his and quietly said, “You’ve got this.”

Her hand, in his, so softly. It was like he held a tiny fallen bird, carefully cupped, to safely place it back in it’s nest. Crawley just stared at her hand in his for a moment, like it was a wild thing, not hers at all, not attached to her arm. Blood from her heart didn’t run into it and back, coursing through every part of her body after having been warmed by an Angel. That hand… it wasn’t hers. Nope.

Right. Ribs. Lungs. Focus. Re-bracing, she focused her demonic essence around her left lung and ribs. She forced the lungs to equalize pressure -- a sound like a hiss, but the wrong way. Lungs inflated. Ribs cracked and popped into place with obscene sounds and a disturbing rippling motion on her thin chest. This time, no sound escaped her clenched teeth, though her face told Aziraphale of the pain and effort, and he winced at every meaty pop.

Crawley closed her eyes at the end of that one. Aziraphale had been right; it took a lot of energy out of her to Heal such drastic damage. And she’d been low on energy already, from her long period of unconsciousness when her essence was maintaining her body. But it wouldn’t do to let the Angel know he was right. Crawley couldn’t show weakness. Not to anyone, not even to him. No matter what she wanted.

“Well, that was… excellent work, Crawley. Yes. All Healed up there. I think that might be all the worst of it, even.” Crawley could feel Aziraphale pat the hand he was holding before setting it gently on her stomach. She could also feel him straightening her robes and other little motions that swirled the air around them. Moving lamps perhaps, or tidying up the dirty rags.

She opened her eyes to see what he was doing. He was gathering used rags, but froze in her gaze like a startled mouse. She had no way of knowing that her golden eyes reflected the lamplight in such a way that they shone like holy lamps of their own. That the Angel thought them the most beautiful eyes in the world, even though he felt a stab of guilt each time he thought as much. At last, he moved, setting the filthy cloths in a pile and sitting back on his heels once more.  _ He’s been kneeling in the blood-soaked dust next to me for who knows how long, now. An Angel. Kneeling in demon blood. It shouldn’t be this way, _ Crawley thought.

“Collarbone. That’ss the last big thing. Everything else iss minor,” she said out loud.

“Ahem. Good, then. That’s good news -- you’re nearly there.” Aziraphale checked her collarbones, saw that there was no bone poking out through flesh, and nodded. “Well, I’m ready, for all the help I am.” He made a self-deprecating face and made a pathetic attempt at a light chuckle.

Crawley didn’t know what came over her, then, and even afterwards she wasn’t sure. But she couldn’t stand the idea of Aziraphale thinking so poorly of himself. Yes, his presence made things infinitely more complicated and dangerous for Crawley -- what if Hell or Heaven peeked in at this very moment, what would they think? And Crawley’s baffling, traitorous heart? Her random meandering thoughts of blood and birds and worst of all safety -- she was a demon. Demons were never safe, end of discussion. But Aziraphale wasn’t a demon. He was an Angel -- the best of the Angels. What other angel would kneel on the dirt for hours, soaking their robes in the blood of the injured, trying to soothe them? What other angel would take in a dying stranger at the request of one of the lowest of the low? … What other angel tried to convince humans to be less cruel, to be less violent? Only Aziraphale did such things. Only Aziraphale was so cast in the image of what an angel should be. To have Aziraphale think his actions were useless was one thing Crawley couldn’t bear, for all the danger her protest might put her in. No -- them  _ both _ in.

“Angel, you’ve helped. I… don’t think I would have made it without your help,” Crawley said in the barest whisper. She didn’t look right at Aziraphale. She couldn’t. Instead, she watched from her periphery, as the corners of his mouth turned ever so slightly up. Perhaps a bit more color came to his face in the lamplight, it was hard to tell.

“I’m glad, then, that I could help,” he whispered back, voice barely reaching Crawley’s ears. His hands continued to flutter about their work.

Crawley closed her eyes again, hiding from so many emotions in so close a space. Instead, she focused her energy once more, grinding bones back up and over into their correct spot -- scraping sharpness dragging ripping crunch! -- and knitting the collarbone and surrounding muscles back into how they should be while grinding her too many teeth together on a sharp inhale. “Gah! Done!” She panted while the burning sensation wore off, then opened her eyes.

The silence of quiet things filled the space for a while. Sounds of water and cloth, breathing, small movements, the splutter of a lamp wick. After a moment, Aziraphale offered her some water. “Water?” Crawley teased, deliberately, “I nearly discorporate and you offer me water? Haven’t you got anything better?” Maybe they weren’t friends, maybe they weren’t on the same side, but they knew each other nonetheless. Aziraphale would have good food and drink, just as Crawley could find alcohol anywhere.

Aziraphale looked both determined and sheepish, “One small cup of water, Crawley -- your corporation will need some water in it, at least! If you drink that good -- well, I mean -- then I’ve got a bit of beer I’ll share with you.” Crawley made a noise of complaint, and then Aziraphale finished, “And then you’ll rest! Crawley, you need it! I can stand watch all night. No one will disturb us. I -- I promise.” Crawley made a mollified sound and gestured with her chin and one of her remarkably expressive monosyllables for the water. She watched Aziraphale from under her auburn lashes as she drank from the cup he held to her lips. How a simple drink could be so heart-poundingly intimate, make her feel so vulnerable yet so safe, she had no clue.

The Angel smiled at her. The lamps glowed brighter. “There now, wonderful! I’ll just get that bit of beer.” And Aziraphale rose, knees marked with dust and dried blood, to cross the room and rummage among his cloth-covered pantry shelves.

Crawley felt a pang of guilt. She wanted to stay with him, to relax and drink for just one night. To wait until the bruises were healed, to rest and know she was safe. She wanted to accept the hand that had reached out and taken hers in kindness. To sit in the lamplight and see the Angel smile. Maybe she could make him smile. But she knew she couldn’t stay. There was a reason every town chased her out or stoned her. She was a demon, unforgivable, a creature destined to crawl in the dust, damned for asking questions. If she took the Angel’s hand… what would happen to him, then?

And so, as Aziraphale’s back was turned, Crawley slunk up and out the cloth-covered window. But she watched from where the window-cloth met the edge of the sill, through the gauze of her filthy veil, to hide the telltale shine of her acid yellow eyes. She watched to see what Aziraphale would do upon finding her gone.

“Here you are, Crawley -- “ the Angel turned at last, with a small clay mug in his hand. He stopped, still, and his face faded from warmth, through puzzlement, to sadness, to something like resignation. The Angel glanced briefly upward, then quietly -- so quiet that Crawley only barely heard, as she was straining with all her senses -- “Safe travels and until next time; do be more careful, Crawley.

“Time to clean up, I suppose,” he continued in a normal tone. With that, the Angel took a drink from the mug and set about cleaning up the bloody mess Crawley had left behind. Crawley could think of no more apt metaphor as, filled with longing and regret, she slipped off into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in the “Crawly” era, pre-Golgotha, which honestly makes me twitch to see. (Far too crawling-at-your-feet-ish.) Hence, the compromise of “Crawley”, since it was the possible name Crowley considered in the book before deciding on “Crowley”.
> 
> Regarding the quote from “Dogma”: I feel like Crowley and Rufus would have gotten along a bit too well. Shenanigans would have ensued, I am sure.
> 
>  **A note regarding descriptions of injury and pain:** Certainly the author has never been bludgeoned to shit by big f-ing rocks. The author has, however, lived a full and interesting life, including broken bones, dislocations, concussions, migraines, stitches, surgery, and chronic pain. The author also has had graduate level courses in anatomy and physiology. That said, the author has chosen to go a semi-fictitious route on descriptions of injury and pain for this main reason: the level of injury Crawley sustains in this work is simply horrific. To fully and accurately describe it would be beyond gratuitous and into why-the-heck-would-you-even-write-this land. Those of you who have worked in ambulances, ERs, trauma wards, etc. know what I’m saying; the rest of you, I most sincerely hope you may live your lives blissfully unaware. Suffice it to say, my “excuse” for the reduction of gore is Crawley’s demonic nature automatically making everything simpler. THAT SAID: if you do not want to know what adjectives best describe bone sounds or brains appearances, DON'T READ THIS. Please take good care of yourselves, ok? -- Love, FlatFelled.


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